Numéro deux (Number Two). Jean-Luc Godard, 1975.
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Edition screened: Olive Blu-ray, released 2012. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 88 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Furies Sexuelles (Les Marie-Madeleine)/Prostitution Clandestine. Alain Payet, 1976.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #Peek-005, released 2021. French language with English subtitles. Combined runtimes approximately 210 minutes.
Summary: No violence to animals in either film.
• Furies Sexuelles (1976, approximately 106 minutes) 4/5❤
• Prostitution Clandestine (1975, approximately 104 minutes) 2.5/5❤
L’enfance nue (Naked Childhood). Maurice Pialat, 1968.
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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #534, released 2010. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 83 minutes.
Summary: Depicted murder of a nice house cat.
Details:
1) We meet a gentle black cat early in the film as he sits on a little girl’s lap watching her and her adopted brother play a game. From 5:36-5:50 the cat tries to cling to the banister for his life as the brother drops him down the deep stairwell of an apartment building. We see a cat, possibly injured, hobbling away 6:07-6:10.
2) The psychopathic brother said he would care for the injured cat but just puts him in a box outside. He removes the dead cat from the box at 12:52 and tosses him over a bank with trash at 13:14.
The balance of the film is an enjoyable social drama about the difficulties faced by well-intentioned foster families. L’enfance nue is Pialat’s first film and the director has fallen for junior high school drivel that animal cruelty is a writer’s tool to develop character. As always, bullshit, no excuse, and shame on him. The entire film is about showing the child’s malignant character through other diverse anecdotes that are interesting, persuasive, and sometimes humorous or thought-provoking. Pialat should not have led with the most over-used and ignominious method.
A Full Day’s Work (A busy day or nine unusual murders in the same day by a single man whose job it is not / Une journée bien remplie ou Neuf meurtres insolites dans une même journée par un seul homme dont ce n'est pas le métier ). Jean-Louis Trintignant, 1973.
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Edition screened: Kino/Lorber Blu-ray, released 2021. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.
Summary: Disregard for killing domestic animals.
Details:
1) We see the perpetrator planting a bomb with a timer in a utilitarian building that is overcrowded with turkeys, 14:36-15:00. In addition to the anticipatory dread that these birds will be blown up, the scene is distressing as the turkeys are crammed together, crashing into one another and their food dispenser.
2) The perpetrator murders a woman who lives alone with many cats (25:45), leaving the cats locked in a house without a caretaker.
3) We return to the shabby building filled with turkeys at 1:24:30, then see it explode from a distance at 1:25:00.
Vivre sa vie: film en douze tableaux (My Life to Live). Jean-Luc Godard, 1962.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #512, released 2010. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 83 minutes.
Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.
A 1956 Gottlieb Sea Belles in the café at 8:20. A different unidentified table is first seen at 29:52 with a better view of the left side of the backglass at 35:35.
Game Over. Bernard Villiot, 1984.
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Edition screened: Included on Arron Blu-ray The Grand Duel, released 2019. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 8 minutes.
Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.
A 1981 Gottlieb Black Hole, figures prominently in the beginning of this short film.
Merry-Go-Round. Jacques Rivette, 1981.
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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray box set The Jacques Rivette Collection, released 2016. English language and French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 160 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
The Lower Depths (Les Bas-fonds). Jean Renoir, 1936.
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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #239, released 2004. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 89 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
The Criterion release also includes Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 adaptation of The Lower Depths.
The Speech (Le discours). Laurent Tirard, 2020.
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Edition screened: Warner Blu-ray, released 2021. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 87 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
The Aviator’s Wife: Comedies and Proverbs #1/6 (La femme de l'aviateur). Éric Rohmer, 1981.
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Edition screened: Blu-ray included in Potemkine box set Coffret Éric Rohmer, l’intégrale, released 2013. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 143 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Love in the Afternoon: Six Moral Tales #6/6 (L'amour l’après-midi; Chloé in the Afternoon). Éric Rohmer, 1972.
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Edition screened: Blu-ray included in Potemkine box set Coffret Éric Rohmer, released 2013. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Classe tous risques (The Big Risk). Claude Sautet, 1960.
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Edition screened: BFI Blu-ray, released 2014. French and Italian languages with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 112 minutes.
Summary: A bratty young woman teases a cat with a goldfish plucked from an aquarium. The fish is replaced unharmed.
César et Rosalie. Claude Sautet, 1972.
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Edition screened: Studio Canal Blu-ray, released 2012. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 111 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Les visiteurs du soir (The Devil’s Envoys). Marcel Carné, 1942.
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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #626, released 2012. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 122 minutes.
Summary: Unkind and stressful situations for animals, although we see no actual harm come to them.
Details:
1) A trained bear has chains wrapped around his head and is led away walking upright, 6:38-7:00.
2) Lucifer smashes a vase of flowers in a hissy fit, and numerous snakes are released from the vase as it breaks on the floor, 1:29:10-1:29:13.
Jacquot de Nantes. Agnès Varda, 1991.
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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 10) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 118 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
Agnès V. by Jane B. Walter Hart, 2020.
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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 9) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 16 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
The Devil, Probably (Le diable probablement). Robert Bresson, 1977.
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Edition screened: Viewed online. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.
Summary: Bludgeoning of a seal; typical fishing abuse.
Details:
1) A man beats a seal on the head three times with the wooden handle of a sickle, 8:44-8:48. Blood appears on the seal’s coat.
2) Characters hook a fish and bring it up on land, the fish still thrashing about on the rod (56:17-56:30).
No Home Movie. Chantal Akerman, 2015.
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Edition screened: Icarus DVD, released 2016. French language with English. Runtime approximately 115 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.
